Floyd Mayweather’s financial troubles are getting so out of control that they may keep him from fighting this year … and even land him in jail?
After years of rumored money problems from living a ridiculously lavish lifestyle, Mayweather started 2026 by suing half the people he used to be in business with. He sued Showtime Sports and its head Stephen Espinoza for $340 million in February, then his former business manager Jona Rechnitz for an additional $175 million. His argument basically boils down
to the billion dollars he made in purses being largely gone, and it’s totally the fault of others and not him.
Now we’re starting to see what happens when Mayweather doesn’t have the cash to insulate him from his irresponsible behavior. “Money” faces two felony charges in Nevada over bad checks he allegedly wrote for a $200,000 watch. And if he’s hoping to refill his bank account with some quick and easy fight money, he won’t be able to do that any more because he now has the promotional company behind aspirational Mayweather vs. Tyson and Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fights throwing injunctions at him.
Mayweather was supposed to have an exhibition boxing match against former kickboxing champion Mike Zambidis in Greece on the 27th of June. While Floyd vs. Tyson and Floyd vs. Pacquiao both look like they’ll fall through, the uninspiring Zambidis fight actually looked like it’d go ahead … but not any more after promoter CSI filed an injunction to stop it.
According to CSI, Mayweather took a $4.65 million down payment to box Mike Tyson and signed an agreement that “Iron Mike” would be his next opponent. Now the Zambidis fight is falling apart. DAZN has taken the fight off their schedule, and Ticketmaster is no longer selling tickets to the event. CSI clearly isn’t messing around and seem prepared to legally lean on anyone who tries to help Mayweather hold a fight that doesn’t involve Mike Tyson.
The solution seems simple: maybe Floyd should just … box Mike? No one ever cared about the Zambidis fight, which was the latest in a long line of pointless Mayweather exhibition matches designed for a quick payday. A glorified sparring match with Tyson? It’s not our cup of tea, but it’ll certainly bring eyes and help Mayweather get himself back on better financial footing.
But whenever there’s an obvious solution to his problems, Mayweather seems to try and pull in the other direction. So we’ll see what comes next for boxing’s biggest money maker and money spender.
